A nonpartisan tax group criticized the U.S. Postal Service for its unsuccessful forays into other markets in a cartoon video released Tuesday.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a Right-leaning nonprofit, is pushing USPS in the minute-long animated video to scale back its seven-day parcel services, grocery deliveries, and other services that detract from its original mission to deliver First Class mail.
The Postal Service announced Nov. 6 it would begin delivering packages for the holiday season seven days a week in major cities and high-volume areas through Christmas Day.
David Williams, president of TPA, said the Postal Service has struggled to produce promised results from many of its new efforts, including from an October 2013 agreement with Amazon to deliver products ordered from the online store on Sundays. He cited a Dec. 5 USPS inspector general report on “inefficiencies” in the Postal Service’s Sunday package delivery.
“The Post Office is billions of dollars in debt and they need to fix the problems they already have, not take on new business,” Williams told the Washington Examiner.
He said TPA decided to produce the video because of the rising volume of packages that accompanies the holiday season.
Williams pointed to a gradual decline in the Postal Service’s delivery speed as evidence of the problems new USPS business ventures have caused.
The time it takes first-class mail to reach its destination has slowed from an average of 2.14 days to 2.25 days as USPS has consolidated some of its offices around the country in an attempt to streamline operations.
“Our message is clear and consistent: the USPS must stop expanding services into new markets and make good on its obligations to deliver first class mail to anyone, anywhere, at an affordable rate,” Williams said.
“Expanding services into the private market is not only wrong because it undercuts private competitors, but because it is coming at the expense of its government-granted monopoly – mail delivery.”
